Necromancy’s Birthplace (Snippet Sunday 4.19.2020)

Welcome to Snippet Sunday on Darkling Dreams!

Where writers come together to share a few sentences (8-10) of their current project — whether it’s a recently released novel, a WIP (work in progress), or an older manuscript that’s being revived. Intended to hook readers, gather feedback, and build an author’s fan base, Snippet Sunday is the Facebook group that does all three.

Hello! Hello! It’s been a LONG time since I have joined in the Snippet Sunday blog hop. My last share was back in April of 2019. Sadly, this will likely be my only share again for some time. Really being able to write in which I have something worthy of sharing on a weekly basis still isn’t going so well for me. For today, though, I am here and we will focus on that.

This week’s excerpt is from something brand spanking new from me! It was that time of the year again when Queer Sci Fi held its annual flash fiction contest. I got pestered to submit again so here I am! This year’s theme for QSF was “innovation” and I came up with another fantasy tale this time. Unlike last year and the one before where I shared from my submission piece in two parts, this year I will only be sharing one part as that’s all I can manage on this piece of flash fiction. So this will be the one and only snippet of this work, considering the whole piece is only 300 words long, too.

So without further ado, here’s the only nine lines you’ll see for now of Necromancy’s Birthplace…

~*~*~*~

Rap! Rap! Rap!

“I’m coming.” The voice that came from within the cottage spoke of age and soon the door opened.

“You are…Voldarin?”

“I am.”

“Good.” Alaric gave a single nod and shuffled past the old wizard, stick tapping back and forth along the floor before him. With MindSight he was able to make out the furniture in blurred tones of grey and heat pockets, and found himself a seat.

“So,” Voldarin’s thermal figure came closer, “I understand you are looking to mend your sight.”

~*~*~*~

And there you have it. The only sneak peak into my submission for this year’s QSF contest. The deadline was April 17th and I just made it under the wire this year. Now all I can do is wait, and hope the third time was the charm for making it into the anthology.

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Image belongs to QSF at queerscifi.com

Due to the fact this is a flash fiction submission, I do not have a cover or blurb understandably, neither is it going to be posted to Wattpad in the near future. So there will be no “if you wish to read more…”

However! If you wish to read anything else that I have out for free, you can click the tabs above to browse through my available works and then follow the links to my Wattpad account. I love to hear any and all feedback on my work as well. Comments are greatly appreciated, as are the reads. You can also find me on my Facebook author page and now my Twitter page to keep up to date with all that’s going on in my writing.

And if you’re looking for some other great snippets of fellow authors,
hop on over to Facebook and check out Snippet Sunday!

Racing a Deadline: QSF’s Annual Flash Fiction Contest

For the last two years I have entered Queer Sci Fi’s annual flash fiction contest without any success in making it into the anthology. I am still determined, however, to give it another go. Third times the charm, as they say, even if each year QSF is getting an influx in entries which lessens the odds of making it in the published book. This year’s contest is coming up on its deadline — which was even extended an extra week due to the troubles of this current time. When I say the deadline is coming up, too, I really mean that the deadline is tomorrow (April 17th). Eek!

I am nothing but predictable when it comes to deadlines. As per normal for me I have procrastinated until the end and now I have about twenty-four hours to churn out a cohesive 300 word flash fiction piece centering around the theme of “innovation” that features some queer content.

Nevertheless! I am pushing forward to get something ready to submit by midnight tomorrow. At the very least I have had a few ideas in the works for weeks now. There are half started story lines of dialogue in my phone notes and half asleep scribbled notes of potential plot next to them. As well as a work conversation from weeks ago that turned into a scarily appropriate topic and potential plot for the current world pandemic.  So I have about three ideas I will toss around to see what works and what comes out best to use in submitting.

Of course, waiting till the last minute pretty much means I won’t be getting any critiquing on my work before I submit my flash piece. Many of you writers probably just cringed and cried at that statement. The last two years I have looked for feedback before submitting, which is normally a must for any writer before hitting that send button. I half wonder if not having time for it this year is a good thing for me. I do enough of weekly flash fiction challenges that never see fresh eyes before I hit submit on a blog comment, so perhaps I just need to trust my own gut this year. However, I do realize the disadvantage I am at when I don’t normally write queer stories. Like I said though: this year I am trusting my gut. Potentially daring and risky but I’m going for it. What do I really have to lose? There’s no admission fee, no risk to the rights of my story if I’m not chosen for the anthology. The only thing I risk is another blow to the heart if I get a rejection email weeks from now.

All in all, if you’re looking for a last minute thing to do like me, and you feel inspired by the theme of this year, you’ve still got a little bit of time to try to submit. All details to the contest can be found by clicking the hyperlink in the first paragraph above.

Now I must go off and try to wrestle out a 300 word story. Perhaps I will actually have a Snippet Sunday post for a week or two if I manage to get a story submitted in time! Imagine that. I’ve done that the last two years also so it’s been a year since I shared any snippets of anything. We shall see. This coming Sunday will tell.

Down the Camp NaNo Rabbit Hole

April showers bring May flowers. April days also bring NaNo words. (Yeah, I know, that one didn’t rhyme at all.) The first Camp NaNoWriMo session of 2020 is upon us, amidst a truly upended world.

For some that means the focus just isn’t there as the world deals with such a unprecedented stress to be putting words on a page. For others, like myself, that means we suddenly have all the time in the world to write while many of us are furloughed from our evil day jobs.

I’m finding myself pleasantly surprised and overly excited to suddenly have an entire month, plus a little, off work. Especially during a Camp NaNo month! For the first time in my life I get to experience what it’s like to have a full time job as a writer. I can get a taste of my true dream career, and I can make a solid effort to create a writing routine for myself for the first time. No interruptions for work. No being exhausted from crazy hours and draining customers. No outside distractions with the world on hold either now there’s nowhere to go but walking down my street. No trying to juggle work and college in order to still be able to fit in some writing time. (Which, let me just say, was completely failing.)

So what am I working on during the Great Pause?

Well. For what sounds and feels like the thousandth time, I am attempting to finish the rewritten, expanded novel version of Embermyst so that I can finally republish the once short story that was unveiled with Victory Tales Press almost four years ago now. I have made quite the ambitious goal for myself due to the no work situation. The plan is to spend at least two hours a day on weekdays working at the story, and an hour on weekend days. It equals out to a total of fifty-two hours of work for the whole month. (If I’m really honest with myself I would love to wrap up the whole novel through, potentially, first round edits by the end of the month.) I’m attempting, also, to make my work happen at a specific time and place — at least on weekdays — so that I hopefully fall into a standard routine. Part of that plan is just so I don’t fall completely out of whack and screw myself whenever the job situation reopens.

Since I decided I’m working by hours and not exclusively writing either, I’m tracking minutes instead of words this go round, despite the difficulties of the “new and improved” NaNoWriMo site that launched last November.

Yeah…

“New and improved.”

About that… It is definitely new, but I wouldn’t call it improved at all. There’s many features I loved or found motivating now missing or gone or changed in a way I no longer like. The site is not always the easiest to navigate anymore. It also glitches at times. And I am still so pissed half my past Camp NaNo stats in which I tracked pages or minutes are still not correct. Not to mention they don’t even have the normal tracking options for Camp up on the site yet. I have to use some conversion chart they made and count it as “words.”

Seriously, shouldn’t these have been the most important details to address in the last four months since November?? What have they been doing?? I see no other changes or fixes among the site to elicit what I’m deeming as disregard for the NaNo experience. Don’t even get me started on these new “writing groups” either.

No. Just… No. I want my normal cabins back!

Nevertheless, glitches, life, and woes aside, here we are back in the throes of Camp NaNoWriMo. Back down the rabbit hole we writers go where there’s plenty of snacks…and potentially toilet paper. We’ve been self isolating for a living here, people.

To all my fellow authors, are you participating in Camp this April despite the current state of the world? Why or why not? And if you have joined the madness what are you working on this month? Share your Camp adventure! Or misadventure if it so happens to be.